The Rabbit in the Moon
by wesolvecrimes-iblogaboutit
Summary: I did not raise you to be who you are today.


**TITLE:** The Rabbit in the Moon

**AUTHOR:** _lucindasparks_

**SUMMARY: **I did not raise you to be who you are today.

**A/N:** I haven't read the comics in over a year, but in that year, I've studied a good amount of Chinese and Japanese history. I feel like the characters and historical accuracy should be okay, but if not, please let me know. I do know that this fic is not nearly long enough to do the subject justice, and that's not even mentioning writing quality. ALSO, as for the whole "-aru" thing, I only use it in not-especially-serious settings. On a final note, "Aiyaa Four Thousand Years" will never, ever fail to make me cry.

I hope you enjoy.

* * *

"Do you see him?"

"See who?" chirps ever-smiling Korea, who has to reach high to hold China's hand as they walk. Stoic Japan is silent behind the two of them, only betraying his presence with footsteps on the nighttime path.

"The rabbit in the moon, aru. Do you see? He is pounding medicine."

Japan speaks for the first time since they began their walk, and China glances over his shoulder at him. "I think he is making rice cakes."

The older nation half-chokes, half-laughs, both at the ridiculousness of the statement and at his little brother's vast imagination. _I never knew he could say such silly things! _He thinks.

But then Korea answers, "Japan! I think you're right."

China cranes his neck around to look, worriedly, back at Japan and next to him at Korea. _What are you talking about? I've never heard of this._

_I did not teach you this._

* * *

China will breathe shakily against the floor for a while, inhaling dust and the thick smell of blood. Then he will drag himself to his feet, gingerly pull the torn shirt off his back, and step into the bathroom to assess the obvious damage.

He feels the edges of the gash throbbing and listens to the blood drip against the floor as he inspects the destruction with his hands. It's deep, and it hurts more profoundly than any superficial wound could. The syrupy fluid stains his fingers as he gingerly touches the edge of the injury.

It is now that he actually turns toward the mirror, now that he glances back at the trail he's left behind- it's later that he awakens on the bathroom floor in a pool of his own tears and blood.

* * *

China will say, over and over, that there is no way Japan could hurt him any more than he already has. And Japan will prove, over and over, that China has him vastly underestimated.

The mutilation of his back has healed, for the most part. China still sleeps on his stomach, and he hasn't spoken to Japan since it happened.

_(He never gives the incident a name for himself. He recalls the word "war" being tossed about, though.)_

But it doesn't occur to China, not until the day the Japanese begin pouring into the city, that there are worse things Japan could do.

That's not until he's listening to the screams of his people outside the Safety Zone, and being physically restrained by the Nazi, the German John Rabe, _you can't go out there, we can't lose you_, and it's not until he's fighting his saviors and telling them to _please listen to me I can't die they're my people you need to let me help them please—_

He'll scream louder the day they hold him down and humiliate him, beat him to within an inch of his life and leave him there, on the banks of the corpse-clogged Yangtze. It's the day he realizes that this means war, _this means a war I'll lose on my own, if it was personal you could have just kept it to me, Japan, you didn't have to go after my people_. The day he almost wishes death on a nation.

That nation is his own.

_(Make it stop.)_

300,000 is a lot of black armbands. China will have to grieve without showing it the way he would like.

* * *

"The incident was regrettable and unfortunate," Japan says.

China can't decide whether to scream at him or strike him or act as cold and calm as the other. Instead of doing any of those things, he asks, "How dare you?"

Japan is silent.

"How dare you come here, to my home, and offer me this sort of apology? After everything you did to my people? After everything you did to me?"

He recalls searing pain and the scent of iron everywhere, he recalls making it back to the Safety Zone and throwing up blood as he listened to the agony of his citizens. The horror of the invasion was practically tangible at that time. It had a name and a face. The very same one standing before him now.

When Japan does not speak, China spits out, "I did not raise you this way. Do not return unless you are prepared to properly acknowledge what you did to us."

With this, he slams the door and waits for the retreating footsteps to die before he slides to the floor.

The tears don't even come today- any other day they might have, but today Japan stood before him and used the words "unfortunate" and "regrettable." Today Japan came to China maybe not even intending to hurt him. But he had.

Japan will say, over and over, that China will forgive him eventually. And China will prove, over and over, that it simply doesn't work like that anymore.

So the world will inhale and exhale with every birth and death, will grow new humans and forget the old ones ever existed. Empires will fall, and one day the rabbit in the moon will cease to pound medicine. China will watch stoically and with charismatic strength as everything he's ever known falls to pieces.

But then, China knows the necessity of progress better than anyone else in the world.


End file.
